Interviewer: The practice of mapping, how does it happen and how is it performed?

Soldier: You begin by preparing, trying to really understand what’s going on in terms of where we are going to be [situated], for how long, which houses, etc. and once the action itself happens, say x number of soldiers, say a platoon, I don’t know, 12-13 soldiers get into a kind of...what’s that vehicle called? 

 

Interviewer: Safari [armored transport truck]?

 

Soldier: Safari, yes. We get into the Safari and of course put on our vests, put on all our equipment, assemble for an equipment parade, you have this, you have that, you have this. We personally never wore face coverings. Whoever wanted to [could have], I mean, it wasn’t an order by definition. There were a few who thought they were in a movie and wanted to cover their faces, so they wore face masks. 

 

That’s it, and like you just arrive in Tekoa, say, and start splitting up into say groups of four, each commander takes four soldiers, you know you have to go to five houses, so you go to the first house, knock on the door and wait for the response: if there’s a response – great, like, you begin. No response – you knock harder on the door and yell: IDF, IDF, IDF, open the door. “IDF” in a pretty aggressive tone, that’s what I’ll say. The goal is obviously for them to open the door. 

 

The instant someone opens the door, immediately the procedure is, I say hello but it isn’t really hello, like it isn’t: hi, how’s it going. It’s a kind of: ahalan [hello], wake the kids up, wake up the wife, bring everyone, so we can see everyone, everyone who lives here. They line up, all the people in the house and then there’s a soldier who does a good sweep if the rooms to make sure there’s nobody in any of the rooms, and then you separate the women and children. Women and children shut in one room with a soldier to guard them, men outside – you search them, leave them outside the building. 

 

After this procedure you just start sweeping, like on paper, like a pad: you count the number of rooms, you count how many doors, you make a general map. There was always someone who drew a map of the house and the way it looks and we search for suspicious things and turn things upside down and say: now search for something that seems suspicious to you. So we really start lifting things, moving things, I don’t know – rugs, beds, taking off sheets, kitchen, drawers you take out to see what there is. Everyone does it more or less according to their own discretion, the discretion of the commander on the ground. I can say that when I wasn’t the senior commander of the force, there were situations where there was chaos, and if it’s, say, a company commander on the ground, or something like that, who feels like showing he has power, [then] that’s what it looks like. The house is a complete mess, and no one ever makes sure to tidy up either: there’s no time, no time, on to the next house, on to the next house, thanks, bye, go back to your homes and on to the next house. The procedure is five or six houses per night. Every team. [It] takes times and is no fun at all, especially the part... you wake kids up in the middle of the night. They don’t understand your language at all, you try to communicate with them somehow. If there’s someone who speaks Arabic it’s a bonus. 

 

I don’t know, in my personal experience this situation in general is not a positive one. It becomes a kind of routine, I’d say that once a week or two you find yourself mapping, I’m not talking about arrests, which is different. Say you complete the five or six houses for the night, we meet back, go back to the base, joke and continue to morning tasks.